Dogs & Families: teaching each other and learning together.

Well worth the wait!

It seemed to take forever, but the day finally arrived. Thursday morning, I headed north with my brother. He was on an important business trip. I was on a much more important trip. I was on my way to pick up Caza.

I arrived in Corinne, Utah, mid afternoon. As we were going over everything and Matt was adding names and addresses to the ahnentafel, we watched Cazadora explore the yard and kennels. My wife and children had wanted to go north with me, but it had not worked out for this trip. I promised to take lots of pictures and send them home that night. (I would be staying the night at my brother’s house in Alpine.) Tam (my sweet wife…who let me get another dog) said that wasn’t good enough. I had to take pictures and send them home before leaving Corinne.

This was my favorite of them. I know that those eyes are trying to say something!

Cazadora

You know when you want something really, really bad, and it seems to take forever to get it. So often, it seems that it has become so big that reality can not live up to one’s expectations.

Well… That is definitely NOT what happened this week. Caza is all that we had dreamed of…and then some.

My nephews all got to meet Caza before my own kids. They have a 4 month old German shepherd and an older Australian shepherd. The Aussie was mostly polite and only wanted to do the obligatory bum sniffing introductions and then to be left alone. Caza didn’t mind the sniffing but thought that it would be much more fun to grab and pull on the Aussie than to leave him alone. Now the shepherd puppy was a different story. He was proud of the fact that we were in his house and that he is a future super protection dog… I don’t think that he would have eaten Caza if we had let him, but I was worried that he might under estimate his own super puppy strength and exuberance. I would rather be safe than sorry, so they only had very supervised visitations.

Around 10:30 that night, Caza found out what a kennel is. She whined, and howled for 18 minutes and then was quite and soon fast asleep. She slept until 5:00 am. I quickly got her up and outside. (I wanted to get her out before she started to whine and perhaps think that she had convinced me to open the crate.) Potty, breakfast, and exercise and then potty some more. We had a big day ahead of us. There were only about 4 1/2 hours more to drive, but then we would be home and puppy and kids were sure to exhaust each other.

I got home around 1:00 pm today (As I write this, it is almost 2am Sat, but it is still Friday for me until I go to bed.) and had to immediately run off to work for a couple hours. My kids didn’t seem to mind ‘babysitting’ Caza.

Here a just a few pictures. More are sure to follow.

Our two youngest(Logan and Cazadora)

Logan is almost 6 months old. Cazadora is almost 8 weeks old. Logan is a wonderful and cheerful baby. He is almost always happy. I have never, however, in all of his life heard him laugh as much as he did when Caza was playing in front of him. (I may upload a video clip of it later.)

Our 2nd youngest, Brennen, wanted me take some pictures of him with Caza. Every time I stepped back to take the shot, Caza would follow me. I finally just stood there and let Caza wander about for a couple minutes. She walked into our yard and past one of my pigeon coops. As she did the wind blew and she whirled around and locked up.

First sniff of pigeon

I think I like this!

She was sight pointing, but it was that breeze that started it all. I thought it was neat anyhow.

Later, we went for a short walk, and Brennen was finally able to get his pictures with Caza.

The kids out for a walk

Buddies resting

Like all puppies, Cazadora likes to lay down and rest, especially after a nice walk. She just does it with her own style.

Spread eagle

I have never seen the like. She will be running along and all of the sudden decide to lay down and almost always it is just like in the photo above: spread eagle.

Before heading to the crate Caza thought that she might just join a couple of the older kids in their campout.

I like camping with the big kids.

As you can tell, it was a big day at our house. There are lots of tired people here tonight.

In addition to the above, Caza got to track down a wounded hotdog and also had her first cat chase today.

While cleaning up some things in the kitchen, I noticed a hotdog that one of the kids had not finished. I broke of a small piece and rubbed it along the floor for about 4 feet and hit it behind a table leg. I whistled and Caza came barreling out of the movie room. She licked my hot doggy finger and wanted more. I had to switch to my ‘clean’ hand to get here to sniff the floor. She was then off, nose to the floor. I guess that was too simple, even for a first time. At least she acted like it was.

Our cat Smokey decided that she would rather avoid proper introductions and took off running when she and Caza first met. Caza thought that was loads of fun and took off after her. The kids were not far behind. They had to hold Caza for some time. Every time they put her down she would run around the corner of the house and try to find that cat again.

Well, it wont be many hours until the sun is up and duties will call. It has been a fun couple of days and more are sure to come. I will keep relating our learning experiences as we wander down this trail.